


A Glimpse

by runrarebit



Series: Something Different [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Arthur Shelby Sr. is not a good father, Family Feels, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, John and Arthur are close, Loyalty, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage, Period Typical Bigotry, Secrets, Trauma, both consensual and non, mentions of suicidal ideation, mentions of the war, possibly bisexual John Shelby, prospective shovel talk, protective John Shelby, smut as described by the observer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: Tommy sends him to London to check in on Arthur. His brother doesn’t say anything, but they both know the reason is because Arthur has been doing too good a job, not causing problems, not causing a ruckus, no reports meeting their ears of him having one of his funny little turns and beating anyone to death or being drunk and off his face on cocaine and generally embarrassing.No. Instead of Arthur being Arthur, everything’s going swimmingly. Everything’s turning a profit. Everything’s running like fucking clockwork— and the Eden Club’s the place to be, apparently. The hottest joint in town.Also, Arthur hasn’t come home. Not even once.Or: Tommy sends John to London in the same universe asOverheated, something John finds rather informative.
Relationships: Arthur Shelby/Alfie Solomons, mentions of John Shelby/Original Character(s)
Series: Something Different [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2206035
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	A Glimpse

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For mentions of attempted suicide, past rape/noncon- implied underage and implied in a forced transactional context, mentions of the war and related death and trauma, mentions of past consensual underage sexual activity, mentions of homophobia, mentions of period typical attitudes/bigotry, mentions of substance abuse- please let me know if I missed any. 
> 
> Yet another sequel from an outsider pov, since apparently that's what I feel like writing right now- I hope you enjoy! Thank you to everyone who's my other Peaky Blinders fics, and for the comments and kudos! Stay safe out there!

Tommy sends him to London to check in on Arthur. His brother doesn’t say anything, but they both know the reason is because Arthur has been doing too good a job, not causing problems, not causing a ruckus, no reports meeting their ears of him having one of his funny little turns and beating anyone to death or being drunk and off his face on cocaine and generally embarrassing.

No. Instead of Arthur being _Arthur,_ everything’s going swimmingly. Everything’s turning a profit. Everything’s running like fucking _clockwork_ — and the _Eden Club’s_ the place to be, apparently. The hottest joint in town.

Also, Arthur hasn’t come home. Not even once.

That’s very— that’s not _Arthur_. Arthur’s needy. Arthur _needs_ them.

Even with all that shit with Michael, with Polly, the only time they’ve seen him, not just heard his voice down the phone line, was at _Epsom_ , when Tommy needed _everyone_ , but otherwise— Arthur hasn’t come _home_.

Something’s up. _He_ thinks Arthur’s found a girl, a _woman_ , one with a fucking brain in her head that’s running the operation, Tommy thinks— Well. He’s not exactly sure what Tommy thinks. Nothing good, he suspects.

Tommy gets too caught up in the inconveniences of Arthur though, doesn’t see the good things. Sure, their older brother is completely fucked in the head, but Arthur is _loyal_. Loyal in a way he suspects they all know Tommy will never be.

When he gets to the Eden Club— middle of the day, the place shut down, no one around— he gets greeted by a small, neat looking woman who looks like the last place she fucking belongs is in the den of sin and iniquity this place is. He stares at her for a bit, wondering if she’s Arthur’s woman, and then wondering _why_ his brother would ever pick such a dowdy little thing— even if she does have a good face— until she introduces herself as Freida Rosen, and adds that she’s Arthur’s _secretary_.

_Since when does **Arthur** have a secretary?_

He tells her who he is and asks to see his brother, only to have her glace at the two men guarding the door— _Peaky Blinders, both of them_ — and when they nod to signal he is who he says he is, he’s then told _Mr. Shelby is busy_ , and that he _can come back later_. Well. That’s not how the world works, is it?

He pushes past her, making her snort out an irritated sound, and heads into the club. She stomps after him, arms crossed under her small breasts, getting in his way, looking at him with cold eyed _assessment_. ‘You can wait in the flat,’ is what she says, eventually, ‘Once I have checked first.’

‘Checked for what, love?’ he asks her. Arthur’s _actual_ woman, probably.

‘Just _checked_ ,’ she snaps. ‘Wait here.’

He waits— until she’s out of sight, then goes poking around. He’s a fucking _Shelby_ , he owns this place. No one, certainly not some prim little thing in sensible shoes, is going to tell him where he can go.

It’s probably a mistake, he realises, when he heads towards what he thinks is Arthur’s office and hears _moaning_.

Now, it’s hardly the first time he’s come across his brother in a— _sensitive_ — moment, but there’s two voices moaning, and neither of them, as far as he can tell, are _female_. So. So—

Well, he’s not a fucking _cat_ , now is he? Curiosity’s hardly going to do shit to him. Neither is Arthur, not really. Arthur’s too _soft_ , or at least too soft with him and Tommy.

So. Yeah. He keeps going, but goes forth more carefully, edging closer and closer to what he sees is a door not quite shut properly.

A little peek in, ready to run if he has to, and—

Yep. Definitely not a _female_ voice.

He doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry. Arthur. Oh _Arthur_ —

Fuck.

Well, at least it looks like his brother’s getting it good from the man behind him, from the man _fucking him_.

_Taking it, he’s **taking it**_.

**_Arthur is taking it._ **

That goes against things, doesn’t it? Goes against what it means to be a _Peaky Blinder_ — but then, Arthur’s not— well— Arthur’s never been _suited_ , not really. Oh. He does his part. He’s loyal to the family, _protective,_ and he’s fucking _magnificent_ in a fight— but it wears on him. Their life wears on him— the way the war did.

Fucking horrible business that. Best forgotten.

His brother’s little gasps drag him back to the here and now, and he risks another little glance through the crack between door and frame.

He can mainly see Arthur, because the desk faces the door and the two men are behind it— though, he’s got to say his brother’s not so much being fucked _over_ the desk, as against it. He’s not bent that far forward, because he’s fairly solidly caught in the embrace of the man behind him— which means he’s on tiptoes, weight balancing on his fingertips, in danger of slipping with every solid thrust.

He’s dishevelled, Arthur, stripped down to his shirtsleeves, waistcoat undone— along with half the buttons of his shirt, tie missing, trousers yanked down to mid-thigh, hair mussed, lips red, swollen, hanging open as he pants. The man behind him is in his shirtsleeves also, though he’s wearing a black waistcoat, and it looks like he’s got his trousers open to pull his cock out but hasn’t bothered stripping any further.

Beardy bastard, he is. Beardy and _bigger_ than Arthur— not taller, the two seem about the same height— but _solid_ in a way his brother never has been.

One big hand is under his brother’s shirt, kneading at his chest, the other pawing at his hip, the skin of his waist. The man’s head, large, capped with short brown hair that matches the beard, is buried against the side of Arthur’s neck, kissing and sucking at the skin there— something his brother seems to be enjoying by the way he moves into the touch, his head turned to the side, eyes on the face of the man inside of him.

So—

He’d guess this isn’t just a quick fumble. This doesn’t look like a quick fumble.

The man fucking his brother is touching Arthur with too much _reverence_ for this to be a quick fumble, and Arthur— _oh Arthur_. Arthur looks too happy, too _comfortable_ in the man’s grasp.

Arthur is so rarely comfortable in his own skin.

Tommy is going to _hate_ this.

‘Fucking, fuck, fucking—’ he hears muttered, not in Arthur’s deep, rasp of a voice, ‘— _Driving_ me fucking crazy, love— come on, come on—’ and then the man inside Arthur lurches back, his brother letting out a soft, _needy_ noise at the motion. The big man drops to his knees, out of sight behind the desk. There’s a moment of awkward movement, what looks like Arthur lifting one foot and then the other, and then he has to duck away from the open door again when a shoe comes flying towards his head.

He hears it hit the wall beside the door, still inside the room— but he still waits for a moment, breath caught in his chest wondering what the fuck he’ll say if Arthur comes and pokes his head out right this moment.

Or the man.

_Should he shoot the man?_

He should probably shoot the man. Shoot the man then beat the shit out of Arthur— that’s what Tommy would want.

Fuck what Tommy wants, though.

He is loyal, loyal to the family, loyal to _Tommy_ as head of the family— but he’s fucking loyal to _Arthur_ too— the way Arthur is loyal to _him_.

When no one sticks their head out the door he risks another glance, sees the man’s got his brother stripped to the waist now, properly bending over the desk as the man— _What is the man doing_? His head is— His _face_ is— _Is he really—?_

That’s Arthur’s _arse_ —

Oh. Oh. He has to look away from that. _Can people really do that?_

Ok, yes, he has fucked a few girls up the arse, and, yes, admittedly he has fucked a couple of men, but he’s never thought to put his _mouth_ — Mouths are for girls, women, _wives_.

Esme, currently. And isn’t it a thrill to have her kitten sharp claws in his hair, holding him in place while she rides his face.

Whatever the man is up to, he doesn’t stick to it, instead lurching to his feet, grabbing at Arthur and spinning him around, bearing him up and onto the desk with Arthur’s long, bare legs wrapped around his waist.

They kiss. He sees them kiss. He _watches_ them kiss for a long moment, then the man is dropping to his knees again, mouth—

Well. Now he’s watching his brother get a blowjob from some strange man.

_He should probably stop watching his brother getting a blowjob from **anyone**_ — it’s a bit— a bit _peculiar_ to be actively watching— and they’ve never been like that. He’s known men who have liked to share girls, even _brothers_ that like to share girls, but Arthur would never do something like that.

Of course the way Arthur is with girls has always been such a fucking _performance_ —

The reason why, he’d guess, is what he’s seeing right now.

Makes sense. Makes sense of a lot of things.

He can remember being— well. _Young_. _Too young_ probably, too young to understand consequences certainty. He’d had a mate, a _good mate_ , skinny little Billy Cooper— and one day skinny little Billy Cooper had dragged him into an alleyway and _dropped to his knees_.

First blowjob he ever had. Fucking _fantastic_ experience.

He’d been full of it, puffed up by it, feeling like a real _man_ —

Not the sort of thing you can go bragging to anyone about, but they were _brothers_ , so it’d felt safe to brag to Tommy and Arthur. Tommy had told him off, called him _disgusting_ , a sodomite, an _invert_ , and gone on about what everyone would think if they found out, and what their dad would do— _Arthur_ had gotten quiet, but later had taken him aside and told him to be _careful_ , that he could get in trouble, and even if he didn’t that he shouldn’t go and _break_ _the poor lad’s heart_.

Yeah. He’d guess Arthur had understood Billy’s position, in a way Tommy never would.

Makes him hate their dad, just that little bit _more_ —

Still. Even Tommy’s words hadn’t stopped him. _Them_. Him and Billy— never was much of anything, he always had a girl at the same time— but fuck, _Billy Cooper_ could suck cock like no woman he’s had ever could.

It’d gotten a bit worse, a bit more intense, during the war— He’d maybe even been a bit _fond_ — But Billy took a shell and in the end there wasn’t even enough left to bury, so—

Anyway. He’s always preferred girls. He never could reciprocate, was the thing. Didn’t want Billy’s cock in his mouth or anything. He could play with it, by the end he could get his hand on it, rub and tug and stroke, but not— and he can’t _imagine_ ever wanting it where Arthur’s been taking it from this other man.

A couple bobs of the head, no more, then said man pulls back again, lays a wet, biting kiss to the skin of Arthur’s right inner thigh— making a long, skinny leg jump— and then the left inner thigh— the same— leaning in and nuzzling his balls for a moment, before pulling his head back to spit on his brother’s— Arthur’s— his—

Well. His _arse_.

He needs to stop feeling so _missish_ about it, with the things he’s done, the ways he’s _fucked_ — but it is a bit different when it’s your _eldest brother’s_ arse, isn’t it?

‘ _Alfie, Alfie, come on, fuck, come on, stop fucking **teasing** ,’ _he hears Arthur breathe, sees long, knobbly fingers tangling in the hair at the back of the man’s head, in the cloth covering his shoulders, _tugging_ —

_God, Arthur’s eager to give it up_.

It’s funny. It really does _make sense_. Make sense of a lot, really—

**_Alfie_**.

Wait a fucking minute— _that’s not **Alfie Solomons** , is it?_

Oh fuck. _Is Arthur fucking Alfie fucking Solomons?_

_Getting fucked by_ , more like— The man in question, the very possibly _Alfie Solomons_ , is back up on his feet in the next moment, hand down in between them, guiding an alarmingly big— and funny looking. _Jesus_ , he _is_ circumcised. _It’s **Alfie** fucking **Solomons**_ — cock into place, even as Arthur eagerly tightens long legs around the man’s solid waist, drawing him in with a flex that speaks of familiarity.

He needs to look away again. Needs to think about this.

_Tommy is really going to be very, very fucking **unhappy**_.

Jesus.

_Fuck Tommy_ , though. Yeah. Yeah— _Arthur_ is more important in this than what _Tommy_ fucking thinks.

Another glance and he can see they’re kissing again, can see the man— _Alfie Solomons—_ has the side of Arthur’s face cupped in a large hand, can hear, a moment later, the man breathe the words, ‘Is it good, love? Love, love, _is it good_?’ against his brother’s lips— and, well, yeah. He has seen enough.

He does not need to see Arthur come with a cock in him.

Quiet as a church mouse he creeps away from the door, heading back the way he came— only to run into the secretary in the corridor near the dance hall.

He tells her he got turned around looking for the toilet, but he can see a kind of wild-eyed suspicion in her gaze. _She probably knows_ , he realises. _That’s what she would have gone to check for_. To see if Arthur and Alfie Solomons— _Freida Rosen? That’s a Jewish name, isn’t it? Oh fuck, Arthur what have you gotten yourself tangled in?_ — were fucking in the flat.

Obviously they weren’t. They were fucking in the office instead.

Doing his best impression of a man that hasn’t just caught his brother taking another man’s cock he chats at her— half flirtation, half deliberate offense, all so she won’t think too clearly about what he’s been up to— as she leads him to this flat on the top floor of the Club, lets him in, and leaves him there.

It’s nice. It’s actually— it’s really _nice_.

Neat, neat like Arthur likes things when his head’s not trying to kill him, and comfortable. A bit fashionable, but not too much. The walls are wallpapered in a pale gold with a faint, floral geometric pattern, and all the wood’s richly dark and well varnished, the furniture all well shaped and elegant.

He needs to think. He needs to work out how he’s going to handle this— because this _will_ have to be handled, and by _him_. Not by Tommy.

He does not want Tommy coming down to London and upsetting everything, or it’ll all end with Arthur really eating his gun this time, he just _knows it_.

_Whiskey_ , whiskey helps a man think. He still has some in his flask, but _why drink your own when you can drink someone else’s_? Whiskey and maybe just a tiny snort of cocaine. Just a little— he’s not the habitual user that Arthur is— and wasn’t _that_ a fucking _stupid_ idea of Tommy’s, even if he used Finn as the messenger boy. Arthur’s bad enough on the drink, what was he thinking introducing him to cocaine as well?— but every now and then, in exceptional circumstances—

And these are some fucking _exceptional_ circumstances.

Whiskey first, though.

There is much less whiskey to be found than he would have expected. No empty bottles around the place, no stockpile of _full_ bottles either, just a couple of cut crystal decanters on a little sideboard filled with what smells like better stuff than Arthur usually buys. He pours himself some in one of the matching cut crystal glasses—

If there’s not much Whiskey, how about—

He does not find any little blue bottles.

He finds plenty of other things, but not any little blue bottles.

Not lying about carelessly, not in the little desk, not in the sideboard, not in the cabinet in the bathroom, not in either of the nightstands in the bedroom, not even in the pocket of the overcoat hanging up by the door— next to the other, _larger_ , overcoat. Good wool, the both of them, well-tailored— by the same tailor, he sees, when he looks at the label, taking in the neat scrawl of the name. The same _Jewish_ tailor.

In the bedroom, going through Arthur’s wardrobe, he finds the same. Old suits, suits he knows, suits from Birmingham— but among them new suits, all from the same Jewish tailor. _Very nice_ suits mind, the kind of suits he wouldn’t mind having himself.

He leaves the bedroom to go sit on the couch and nurse his whiskey, not wanting to look in the nightstands again— the sight of a half used jar of petroleum jelly haunting him— or wanting to go back into the bathroom— with its further jar of petroleum jelly, and its very _non-Arthur_ bars of rose scented soap, rose scented bath oil, and little jar of coal tar ointment— or wanting to acknowledge the very Jewish hat and one of those skull caps they wear perched on the sideboard— far too close to the whiskey for his liking— or go anywhere near the desk— where, among the papers covered in Arthur’s tortured handwriting, he’d found quite a lot of his brother’s drawings.

He’d known they were Arthur’s at sight, they were too _good_ to belong to anyone else. Anyway, there was a picture of the horse there, _Grace’s Secret_ , pictures of them— the family— and more than a few pictures of the man he last saw with his cock up Arthur’s arse.

Handsome bastard— or at least handsome through Arthur’s eyes. A kind of fierce dignity depicted in his face, the way he holds his body, his hands— Yeah. Arthur is fucking _smitten_.

Arthur is fucking smitten, Tommy is going to be furious, and he doesn’t know what Alfie Solomons’ game is.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he believed it was something like love? But would a man as powerful as Alfie Solomons really fall in love with the mess that is Arthur?

A _convenient fuck_ , then—

_That_ is a thought he doesn’t like. That is a thought that will lead to Arthur getting _hurt_. He doesn’t want Arthur to get hurt. Arthur’s been hurt enough as it is.

Well fuck, is he really going to have to go wave his gun at _Alfie_ fucking _Solomons_ to warn him what will happen if Arthur gets hurt?

Yeah. Yeah, he probably is.

Not what Tommy would want— but _fuck_ what Tommy wants. Just— _fuck_ it.

Tommy doesn’t know everything. There are things _he_ knows that Tommy doesn’t. Things about Arthur—

Things that make him _worry_ about this thing he can see between his brother and this other man.

_How can Arthur stand_ —?

Doesn’t matter, all that matters is that Arthur _can_ , and that it seems to be making him happy, so he’s going to have to step in and _make sure Arthur stays happy_.

The whiskey seems to have magicked itself from his glass, no memory of finishing it sticking in his mind. He sighs. Gets up. Goes and pours himself another one, feeling the weight of his gun in its shoulder holster.

It’s all too hard all of a sudden. It all only works if they play make believe, act like there’s nothing wrong, like—

They say, all of them, that it was the _war_ that made Arthur the way he is, and yeah, true, he had a _bad war_ , it certainly rattled free a few demons that were already coming loose in there, but it wasn’t the _war_. It was all of it. The way they grew up— their _dad_.

Fuck their fucking dad.

He knows Tommy doesn’t know, none of them know, only he and Arthur— and their fucking _dad_ , and he imagines the man, _men_ for all he knows— know about the price Arthur sometimes had to pay for the old man’s debts— and he only knows because he was sick and Arthur was left taking care of him while everyone else was off doing everything everyone else did.

His dad had said Arthur had been thrown by a horse, it was why he couldn’t really walk, had to stay home, rest.

_Horses_ don’t leave a ring of hand shaped bruises around a throat, or fist shaped bruises across a face, belly, ribs, _thighs_. They don’t leave— and he can’t even think about the rest of it, else he gets _sick_ with anger.

If Arthur hadn’t been hurt so bad, dosed up on their dad’s gin to hold the pain at bay, his brother never would have let slip what had happened. What their father had made him do. The man their father _owed_ —

_He’s have had dad taken away and hanged_ , was Arthur’s excuse for the bastard that sired them, that and, _Would you rather it was you? Tommy? Heaven forbid, **Ada**?_

No. He’d rather it was none of them. He’d rather it was the noose around their dad’s neck instead.

Arthur’s been good to him. Arthur’s been _real good to him_ over the years.

Fuck it.

He’s never given a fuck about the whole _sodomite_ thing. _Who cares?_ God, if there is a God, has surely got more important things to worry about than what men do with each other’s cocks. It is a bit much to be forced to acknowledge that one of the things his eldest brother likes to do with a man’s cock is take it up his arse— but it’s still _Arthur_. It’s not like it makes him any less, any _different_.

So, yeah, fuck it.

If Alfie Solomons makes Arthur happy— and isn’t going to do anything to hurt his brother— then he’s all for it. He will stand between Arthur and Tommy and fight his brother’s cause.

After he’s gone and waved his gun at Alfie Solomons, of course. Because that is now an event in his near future.

Hopefully not the event that _ends_ his future— but if Alfie Solomons shoots him for waving his gun at the man over Arthur, then surely Tommy will have to come down to London and kill Alfie in turn? If Arthur doesn’t get there first— because, smitten or not, there’s no doubt in his heart that Arthur would ever choose _someone else_ over _him_. Over _family_.

Tommy will want Arthur to pick sides— Well. He’ll have to put a stop to _that_ , won’t he?

Jesus. This is not what he signed up for when he agreed to come down to London. His plans were all whiskey and dancing and a girl or two to fuck that wasn’t his _wife_.

He’s just pouring himself his third glass when he hears scurrying footsteps, looking over at the door in time to see Arthur burst in, looking wide eyed and a little rumpled. _He looks good_ , he realises, even as he calls out some meaningless greeting, _healthier_.

He sees his brother’s light eyes go racing around the room, catching on the overcoat, the hat, the desk— and he can’t help it, he’s across the room in the next moment, pulling Arthur into a hug, unable to hold back the smile that crosses his face when his brother relaxes out of his instinctive tension and starts to hug back. _Fuck he’s missed him_.

Also, Arthur needs a fucking _wash_. He can smell the sex on him— as well as the sweat of another man.

It almost makes him laugh. _Yeah, Tommy is really going to fucking **hate** this_.


End file.
